Fracture

Dig your own hole. Worth: $8
based on 360 demo

The world needs ditch-diggers too.

This game is every shooter you've ever played, except that you can move the terrain about ten feet up or down. This allows you to create on-the-fly cover by digging a trench for yourself to hide in, or allows you to access high points by creating a hill to climb.

Neat, right? Well, it actually is kind of neat. But it's not enough to make this game worth very much if you've been playing video games for awhile. The graphics, sound, controls, and camera are all solid, so no complaints there. But there aren't really any thrills either.

Except for the novelty of moving the ground up or down, this game was pretty boring. There's some Bad Guy from Badovia who wants to dominate everyone in Goodville. You must stop Bad Guy by shooting and terraforming your way to Goodiness. If you're new to gaming, or haven't played enough shooters, you might dig this (what a great pun! Oh man, that's really deep. Oh! Again!). Otherwise, you've been there and shot that.

The demo is fun. But it's about as much fun as you'd have with the full game. So just play the demo for 15 minutes and then move along.

Mercenaries 2

Total Video Game Dominator. Worth: $60
based on 360 retail game

Creative. Violent. Awesome.

Guns, rockets, grenades, C4, artillery, missiles, tanks, helicopter gunships, recoilless rifles, 500-pound bombs, jet-propelled water craft, and earth-penetrating nuclear bunker-busters. This action game literally has it all for you to reduce Venezuela to a smoldering ruin.

Controls, camera, driving, environment.
The controls are pretty different from other action games, but once you get used to them they're fine. The camera is solid (unlike GTA4), the driving is fluid and fun (unlike Crackdown), and the world is wide-open and sprawling (unlike Halos 1-3).

Missions
Your tasks range from small (kidnapping/eliminating specific people) to large (destroy off-shore oil derrick). The story also ranges from cozy things like talking to your co-workers (the drunken jet pilot is pretty funny) to real-world issues like the way oil-hungry superpowers stomp all over the rights of third-world countries that happen to sit on large petroleum reserves.

Come for the bombs, stay for the Co-Op
Playing this game with my buddy Arth rivals Halo 3's co-op for best-ever video game experience. In many ways, it surpasses it because you really can go anywhere and do anything (pretty much). There are at least four or five ways to accomplish each mission, and with two people that number doubles. You can run in shoulder-to-shoulder, or ride in a tank together, or have one person in a helicopter providing cover fire while the other assaults on foot. The AI will do what it can to spoil your plans, and that's when the ability to improvise comes in handy. Arth and I have good communication with each other because we've played so much Halo 3 MP together, and we both like creating gigantic exploding fireballs out of things that bar our path to total video game domination.

Example story
Arth and I had just finished a job when we got attacked by two tanks, a company of enemy infantry, and a huge helicopter. While Arth fought off the ground forces, I hijacked the helicopter. Then I used the chopper's anti-tank missiles to obliterate the enemy armor. By this point Arth had cleared out the foot soldiers, so I swooped down and picked him up. He got on the door-mounted minigun as I flew us up to about a thousand feet. Suddenly two enemy helicopters appeared and fired anti-air missiles at us. Arth managed to kill one of the pilots before the enemy rockets blew our ride into an airborne junkpile. Arth and I fell to earth (both of us laughing all the way down, it was totally comic-book ridiculous) and got our health knocked down to 1% each. We both took cover while the remaining enemy helicopter circled the area. Arth broke cover to draw the chopper's fire while I rushed underneath the circling menace and hijacked it. After throwing the pilot out the window, I picked up Arth and we flew off into the sunset. This kind of adventure happens every time we play together.

Mercenaries 2 could be the game of the year, and I give it my highest recommendation.

UPDATE: Sep 19. Arth and I just found the Fuel-Air RPG. It creates a cloud of gasoline vapor (very dangerous!) around your target. Then the cloud explodes in a giant fireball. It's a guaranteed kill on whatever it hits: tanks, bunkers, buildings, anything. Terrific!

UPDATE Sep 20. We found the MOAB (Mother of all Bombs). It destroys at least two or three square acres. Arth and I must have laughed for about ten minutes after we saw how ginormous this friggin' this is. When the bomb came out of the plane it was like the bomber gave birth to a city bus.

UPDATE: Sep 22. Arth and I have taken to racing the game's motorcycles off cliffs and over steep hills to get as much air as possible. We've even discovered our own personal Achievement. We call it "Ghost Rider" and the idea is to get your bike to burst into flames at the beginning of a jump so you create a fiery arc across the sky before the bike explodes in mid-air. We've spent the last two nights doing only this. This game is totally hilarious.

Fallout 3

Eye-popping gut-churning good times. Worth: $??
based on 360 gameplay videos

More amazing work from Bethesda.

I've been entranced by the videos for this game. I loved Morrowind and Oblivion, and now Bethesda has made a sprawling role-playing game set in a post-apocalyptic America.

SW Force Unleashed

Will your Jedi friend help move my baby grand piano? Worth: $25
based on 360 demo

Gorgeous and frenetic, but does it have legs?

The demo for this game certainly makes me want to run around and throw people (and walls, doors, cars, crates, and spaceships) all over the galaxy. It showcases the awesome power of the Force and how under-utilized it has been in SW movies/games/books thus far.

This awesome power is the blessing, and possibly the curse of this game. I didn't use anything but Force Glom (push, pull, throw, whatever) even though I was carrying the coolest weapon ever imagined (light saber). It reminds me of playing the demo for Dark Sector, where the glaive is so unique and destructive that you wonder why the devs wasted their time putting guns in the game. Like the action-packed action in Stranglehold, it's sugary and fun, but is there any meat to the game?

This game could be a terrific multi-course meal, but it might be a beautiful cake that gets stale after a day or two.

Pure

Fly through the air, on your fat ATV. Worth: $12
based on 360 demo

Tons of fun, once the price is right.

Racing games never get good scores from me because they're so inherently limited. That doesn't mean I don't like them though, in fact I love them. A good racer will keep me entertained for weeks as I get to know the tracks and the capabilities of the vehicles. While some racers have a lousy "feel" for the road (Forza) or just plain suck (NASCAR), Pure is fast, fun, and satisfying.

Shake it like you mean it
This game looks great, plays sassy, and the beginner-level tricks are easy to pick up. I can see that there is a nicely sloping difficulty level for the more advanced tricks. I hardly landed any of them, but I can see that I'll have a good time getting the hang of them when I buy this game two years from now when it only costs me twelve bucks.